Surrounded by stacks upon stacks of well-worn vinyl, and having just signed for a new UPS shipment of music in preparation for his store’s biggest weekend of the year, Kirk Walther paused to remember the first album he bought as a kid.

It was a 45 of the Animals’ “Bring It On Home To Me,” he decided after some thought. He remembers snatching up the record at a grocery store’s closeout sale in Cedar Rapids, where he grew up and played the drums as a teenager before eventually settling in Iowa City after college.

Today you could download that song — or any Animals album, for that matter — faster than you can set your turntable spinning and drop the needle. And even for Walther, who has downloaded his share of music and sells plenty of his shop’s inventory online, that’s something he still struggles to wrap his mind around.

“It’s amazing how easy it is to steal music,” Walther said. “There’s something obscene about how easy it is to do. I understand it, I get it, I even do it. But at the same time, I feel it’s an insult to the artist. You can go download the entire Doors’ catalog in 28 seconds, and it’s like, whoa, it shouldn’t be that way.”

Walther’s shop, Record Collector, remains an analogue oasis in an iTunes and file-sharing world — the last-remaining stand-alone record shop in Iowa City, which once had a music retailer on every downtown block, it seemed. This week he and his three-person staff are receiving shipments of new albums for Saturday’s National Record Store Day, which for the past seven years has been an annual celebration of independent record stores across the country.

In past years, a line a hundred deep has formed outside the shop before its opening on Record Store Day, when Record Collector hosts live music and puts new and exclusive releases out on the shelves, Walther said.

While its competitors have closed shop over the years one by one — chains like Sam Goody on South Dubuque Street in 2006 and FYE in Coral Ridge Mall in 2010, and fellow independent shops like Real Records on North Linn Street in 2011 — Record Collector, founded in 1982, has proven to be the Keith Richard of Iowa City’s music retailers.

Walther attributes that longevity to the lasting appeal of vinyl, which he said has seen a resurgence over the past five years. While other music shops had specialized in CD sales, Walther has remained focused on vinyl, which today he said accounts for 70 percent of his shop’s sales.

For many, taking the sleeve of a new record and hearing that pop and hiss when the needle hits the groove remains an irreplaceable ritual.

“It’s the sound quality, and the palpability of the artwork, the fact you can touch it, feel it,” Walther said. “It’s friendly, it’s warm, it’s soothing.”

Zak Neumann, a regular at the shop, was scouring the stacks earlier this week, eventually settling on an old 7-inch album by grunge-rockers Mud Honey and a new album by the indie band Cloud Nothings.

“It’s been around since I was a kid, and I think I bought my first record at Goodwill and graduated to coming here,” Neumann said of Record Collector.

Neumann said he and his girlfriend’s music collection includes a few hundred vinyl records, which he prefers to CDs and downloaded music because of the artwork and liner notes.

“It’s having something physical, tangible,” Neumann said. “And CDs are ugly, plastic. So the big artwork is nice. And anymore, if you buy a record you get a digital download too, so I don’t have to buy it twice and I don’t have to go online to download illegally to have a copy in my pocket. So it’s nice to have the physical copy — plus they put out limited editions, which I’m a sucker for that.”

Chris Oglesby, 24, of North Liberty, was making his first visit to Record Collector earlier this week. He said he inherited his fathers’ Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd albums, and his love for classic rock.

“I like vinyl because it’s more of the original recording. You can hear the history behind it as well rather than the remastered edition that’s put out on a CD,” Oglesby said.

Walther, who graduated from the University of Iowa with a psychology degree in 1980, opened Record Collector in 1982 in a space he leased inside a friend’s comic book store on Burlington Street. The shop has moved four more times over the past 32 years, finally settling into 116 S. Linn St. in 2007.

Walther’s plan in the early years was to run the shop for a while and move on to new things. Instead, as the years went by, he found he had everything he needed in his store.

“Mingling with customers, listening to new music, discovering old music — I enjoy pretty much everything, even the accounting, which is a good diversion,” he said. “I have the perfect job. If only I could make more money.”

Reach Josh O’Leary at 887-5415 or joleary@press-citizen.com.

Celebrate Vinyl

•
What: Live music, gift certificate giveaways and Record Store Day exclusives and limited releases.